Tickets.com expands through acquisitions

The competitor to TicketMaster-CitySearch announces it will acquire TicketsLive and TicketStop in an effort to boost its market presence and add venues.

3 January 200211:43 am AEDT

In a bid to ensure there will be at least two major players in the
online ticketing market, Tickets.com, which is merging with Advantix, announced
two more acquisitions designed to expand the number of venues it
services.

Privately held Tickets.com/Advantix, which will be known as Tickets.com after the merger, is acquiring TicketsLive, which runs an electronic
transaction network. In addition, Tickets.com said it is buying TicketStop, whose Windows-based software
is used by 800 small and mid-sized venues.

Tickets.com, which owns the 1-800-TICKETS phone number,
has been adding inventory through mergers in an attempt to catch up with rival
Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch, a
publicly traded company that dominates the small but fast-growing online
ticketing market.

Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch sells tickets for more than 3,000 venues, far
more than Advantix's 1,400. TicketsLive software is used in 1,800 venues,
Tickets.com said, while TicketStop's system is installed in more than 800
venues.

But when it comes to online sales, Tickets.com and Ticketmaster
Online-CitySearch shouldn't be compared in terms of venues, said Tom Gimple,
the CEO of Advantix who is slated to become Tickets.com's CEO once the merger
is complete. "We're not Ticketmaster, and we're not claiming to be," Gimple
said. "But we're aggregating those venues that have not had electronic
distribution and have not had a national or worldwide brand."

Tickets.com also presents itself as a more consumer-friendly alternative to
TicketMaster Online-CitySearch, because it provides information on where to buy
all tickets, even for venues with which it does not have a contract. Even with
the greater inventory the two acquisitions bring, Tickets.com will continue to
do that, Gimple said.

The acquisition of TicketsLive should also give Advantix
a leg up in the overseas market. Forty percent of TicketsLive's venues are
located outside the United States, according to Gimple.

Also today, Tickets.com said it raised $30 million in new capital. New
investors include Jackson International, an investment firm backed by Michael
Jackson and IMG/Chase Sports Capital Partners. IMG is a major sports management
and marketing firm.